From a childhood dream to a job at NASA
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Abigail Allwood |
In a few weeks geologist Abigail Allwood will realise a lifelong dream when she flies to the US to work as a postdoc in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Allwood has been fascinated with other planets since the age of seven.
"It was then that my sister, who is about four years older than me, explained the existence of the planets, and our solar system, to me," she recalls. "I learned it all off by heart and was captivated by the notion that there were other planets and that we could go out there and take a look."
At JPL, Allwood will study the type of rock formations that are likely to be found on Mars, so that scientists will be able to identify any traces of previous biological life, known as 'biosignatures'.
The 'rocky' road to Pasadena
Despite her lifelong ambition to be involved in humankind's exploration of the universe, Allwood's path to NASA was far from smooth. Believing she would need qualifications in astrophysics or astronomy, she first enrolled in a physics degree at university, but failed miserably.
Eventually reapplying to study geology, Allwood performed so well she ended up with an Honours degree from the Queensland University of Technology, but once again found her NASA dreams fading. Thinking there were no opportunities to study planetary science in Australia she applied to work in the oil industry, a natural career progression for a geology graduate. However she then discovered the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University and its Director, Professor Malcolm Walter, a geologist with a research interest in finding traces of life on Earth and elsewhere in the universe.
Allwood aborted her four-day long career with Woodside Petroleum ("they were really supportive and said they'd keep the door open for me - I was so amazed") when news of her success in gaining an Australian Postgraduate Award came through. "I was working in Perth to study stuff in North Africa, and then I moved to Sydney to study stuff in Western Australia," she laughs.
PhD research makes a splash
A study of peculiar rock formations known as stromatolites, found in the Pilbara region of WA, formed the basis of Allwood's PhD research. Stromatolites are a contentious phenomenon - some scientists say their unusual features prove they are fossilised remnants of ancient life, while others argue they could have occurred by natural rock-formation processes.
Allwood's research, published this year in Nature, the world's leading scientific journal, therefore made quite an impact, particularly when she argued that 3.43 billion-year-old Pilbara stromatolites were almost certainly evidence of the earliest life on Earth.
For weeks either side of the publication, Allwood did dozens of interviews with magazine, newspaper and radio journalists from around the world, which resulted in more than 200 stories on her work in over 20 countries, from Australia to Russia and China.
While she recalls the experience as being very hectic and a bit intimidating, Allwood says the end result makes it all worthwhile.
"When you're doing the research you know it's relevant but you think no-one's going to get it, and you have to continually justify your funding existence," she says. "But when this tremendous interest arrives, and you find yourself talking to a gushing journalist from Brazil, or when in the following weeks and months you're sent articles from friends living in Sweden who've cut out a two-page spread on your research from their national weekend newspaper, you think 'wow, people are interested and think it is worthwhile'."